Sunday, December 27, 2015

Christmas week started off much different than I had imagined it would. Sunday after Christmas at Joan's, Bob and Suzette took Lindy and Will home with them until Wednesday. I suddenly had three free days.

Monday Lynn and Anna came over and we headed downtown to look around. Our new town has quite a cute downtown with lots of cute shops, a cute restaurant for lunch and a cupcake place for dessert. I had been wanting to spend some time down there and it worked out that since the kids were gone I could do it. They came a little bit early and Anna brought her new dog over to play with Aiden. Nugget was a rescue dog who hasn't mastered the concept of playing. Aiden is a bigtime player so he was like "Nugget, come play!" He wanted to play so bad. It took him a little while but he finally started running a bit. And then his bowels got a little upset and he had a good case of diarrhea. Nugget kept wanting to get inside to play with the cat. Monday night my parents came over to pick Aiden up. They were going to take him home to let him and Sadie get their biggest wrestling out of the way before everyone showed up for Xmas. Sadie and Aiden played at our house for a bit and we ate dinner. They headed off and then I had no kids or a dog. The house was really quiet! Jack was still there but he is quiet and easy.

Tuesday I had a date planned with wrapping paper, tape and scissors. I had wrapped almost nothing and spent my entire day wrapping. I did set my computer up and watched about 5 straight episodes of Downton Abbey so that was nice Drew got home from work and we ate out for dinner and ran a few last minute errands for Xmas gifts.

The kids had fun at Bob and Suzette's. Monday Bob took Will to Dave and Busters for a morning of fun. In her words, Lindy "refused to go." She said she doesn't like video games. She went with Suzette to visit an old lady from their church. I'm sure she actually enjoyed that! Tuesday they went to see the new Chipmunks movie and came home singing the songs from the movie.

Wednesday Bob brought the kids back but took them to Lynn's because I had a doctor's appointment. They decorated Xmas cookies - that were much prettier than the ones we made at home! I picked them up around 4:30pm and I told the kids I had a surprise for them. I told them we were going to Mocksville to meet someone to pick something up. They asked if they could play with it and I said yes. When we got there we met my dad and we picked up Hayley and Rylee! They had flown in on Tuesday and they were able to come spend Wednesday night with us. The kids were so excited for them to come to our house to play with their toys and for them to spend the night. We picked them up and had pizza for dinner and donuts for dessert. They played all night and Hayley introduced us to Dubsmash. They had a campout in the den with the Christmas tree lights. I had to wake them up Thursday morning to get them up and ready to take them back to meet my dad in Mocksville again. It wasn't long but we really enjoyed having them there!

Besides being Lindy's special day, it was also our first Christmas celebration with Grandbob and Suzette.

We got up and headed to Charlotte to get our Christmas started. They had a special crown and wand for Lindy for her special day. Little Miss was happy to boss everyone around! We had a yummy lunch and then got down to the good stuff - presents!

Sunday we had church and then we headed to Aunt Joan's house for more Southern Family Christmas. We celebrated with Bob's brother, sister and their families. Will had another boy his age to play with and he had a great time. Joan let her (huge) dogs out and Lindy loved it! They were patient dogs who let her walk them all over the house! We played kickball - a little milder game - so all the kids could play. Lindy was too interested in the dogs to want to play. Will had a good time though.

Pictures of our first and second celebrations -

Princess Lindy﻿

Waiting to open presents

New bag chairs!

Will got a perplexus and Drew is obsessed with it!

Aunt Anna having a little fun with Drew

Most of the crew -

Switching Suzette for Grandbob!

At Joan's on Sunday. Lindy with cousin Abbey.

Will and JJ

Bob and his distant relative Bebo. She is 92 and sharp as a tack.

Uncle Mike gave them Panthers hats!

Lindy and Aunt Joan

Kennedy was not quite sure about the big dogs.

Lindy in dog heaven!

Bob doing Abbey's hair.

The kickball game.

Jamie and Molly

Anna, Lynn and Deirdre having a blast!

The 2nd cousins in attendance. JJ, Kennedy, Will, Jackson, and Lindy. The four other 2nd cousins weren't there this year.

We finished up work and school (for the kids and I anyway) for the year and it felt great! I worked half days on Monday and Tuesday, full days on Wednesday and Thursday and then was done. The kids had school all week.

Lindy had her normal homework and Will had no homework. In her words, "It's not fair." I agreed but we talked about how their classes are different and we have to do what her teacher says.

Mimo picked the kids up from school on Monday and took them to our house. She hadn't gotten her washer and dryer yet and she needed to do some laundry. We ate dinner and she headed home after that. I was able to get some Xmas shopping done before heading home which was good.

Friday the kids had their Xmas parties. Lindy's class had their party with just their class but Will's class had a pizza party with parents. We ate pizza, they listened to a story and did a craft. I left Will's party about 10 minutes early and went and had lunch with Lindy. Her special day was on Saturday so I had lunch with her on Friday. She picked a little girl named Hadley to eat with us. I think she honestly picks whoever is standing in front of her to eat with her! ha!

Friday night we got home and we made Xmas cookies. It's a task I really don't enjoy, but the kids do and we do it for tradition's sake. The cookies were too thin and turned out not very good but the kids didn't care. They had fun coating them in colored sugar and tiny balls. After cookies and dinner we changed into Xmas pjs and we rode around town to look at lights. We checked out some new neighborhoods in town and found some pretty lights. We came home and watched the movie Elf for the first time. Will had been dying to watch it so I finally let them. We also did our other usual tradition of sleeping by the Xmas tree lights. The kids and Drew (his own decision) slept on the ground and I slept on the couch with Aiden. He loved sleeping out of his crate - a first for him.

We woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed Saturday for Lindy's special day. I had done signs and balloons for Will's special day and at 6am I remembered we hadn't done anything for Lindy yet. We sprang into action to make signs and blow up balloons for her. She woke up happy to see them at her breakfast seat that morning.

For Lindy's special activity we went on a Polar Express train ride. I had been wanting to do this for a long time but until last year the only one around was about 4 hours away and would require a night stay. The tickets are expensive so we've never done it. Last year the NC Transportation Museum in Spencer, 45 mins, from us started doing it. The tickets were sold out last year but I got on and got them early this year. Since Lindy's special day was a Saturday I thought this would be the perfect activity.

We got there about an hour early and we went to the gift shop and we toasted marshmallows for s'mores. We got in line for our car and shortly after 7pm we boarded our train. It was a fun night. The 3 chefs did a fun song and dance and then they passed out hot chocolate and cookies. They read the story and showed the book to us and we stopped at the North Pole. We got out of the train and Santa gave the first gift of Xmas and we got back on the train and headed back to the station. Along the way Santa came through and gave everyone a bell. Everyone had a good time on our Polar Express ride to the North Pole!

One night I wondered where Aiden was and found him asleep with Lindy! She was so excited he slept with her even though she had no idea!﻿

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Will and the tree he made us for Xmas. He was so proud because he wrapped it himself too.﻿

Will at his Xmas party at school.﻿

With his buddy Ben.

Making Xmas cookies. Let the fun begin!

We rode around looking at Xmas lights and took Aiden. He enjoyed the lights!﻿